Brian King, an Australian swim coach accused of several child integrity violations including emotionally abusing children and lying on his resume, has received a three-year suspension from coaching children, according to a letter to parents who made the complaints.
King’s punishment will include a 6 month banishment from coaching swimmers of any time, followed by a 12-month probationary licence. In total, he will not be allowed to coach children under the age of 16 for three years, according to The Daily Telegraph.
According to a report by SwimSwam’s Jared Anderson in May, King’s presence at the Miami Swim Club was littered with inconsistencies. He was hired as an assistant without approval of the club’s Board of Directors, and was later found to have falsified several items on his resume (and will not require a re-certification of several licenses before he can resume coaching).
He was also accused of throwing objects at swimmers, verbally abusing htem, and making one get on all fours and “bark like a dog.”
King is still believed to be coaching Chinese swimmer Sun Yang after Miami head coach Dennis Cotterell was ordered to stop. We have requested comment from Swimming Australia on whether King’s suspension extends to international swimmers, or even clubs in other countries (King holds American citizenship as well), but as it was after-hours on a Sunday, did not receive immediate response.
In order for someone to work with children they need to demonstrate certain attributes such as compassion, ethics, honesty, integrity and mutual respect. Unfortunately these are not attributes that Brian King displays.
Not only does Brian lie about the top shelf issues such as (sporting achievements, sponsorship, awards, work history, health, marriage) but he is someone that also lies about the seemingly innocuous and insignificant things as well.
Over the years I’ve lost count of Brian’s many lies – some of the better ones were “I’m sponsored by Oakley – I’ve been with them for over a decade” “I almost made the Olympics” “I can’t pay you now – I need to fly overseas because my wife has… Read more »
Further to my earlier comment about the role of Swimming Australia in all this. Can i suggest an email to the Alannah and Madelaine Foundation questioning the role of their Chairman John B and his lack of action under the mission statement they are devoted to.
http://www.amf.org.au/ContactUs/
At least making your displeasure known might start making the leadership of SAL accountable in this deplorable outcome to a so called investigation and long winded action.
Thank God this narcissist can no longer coach kids for awhile. We do hope his coaching career with kids is over as he really does long term damage to young peoples’ minds.
My kids loved swimming and they trained a couple of times a week for years until our wonderful coach was very quickly and quietly replaced with this “assistant olympic coach”. I can’t believe that he was treated like a God and fooled the company that hired him and the parents of our swim club. My kids hated going to training and we stopped going because they were really stressed before each squad swim. I could see they weren’t happy and I personally heard the verbal abuse to… Read more »
I understand that moves are afoot to bring DC’s involvement in this whole fiasco to the fore-front.
Everyone needs to understand that DC was BK’s boss and (more importantly) his mentor.
Given BK’s problems, it was really up to DC to properly mentor the man. If a strong leader had been in control of BK, then it is possible that he could have been dragged back into reality and would still be coaching today. I put the majority of the blame of what happened to BK on to DC. He was the man in charge. He was the man responsible. He was the man that could have put BK back on track.
Also, DC put Reece Rackley under enormous pressure… Read more »
Notice how many (2) down votes in a row in this thread. Wonder if King and Cotterell are reading the comments.
Stick a microchip in Brian King and monitor his every movement. You’ll see he slinks around like a gutter rat, trying to conceal its whereabouts. Gutless behaviour from a gutless bully. Good riddance.
My son is one the faceless children that was abused by Brian King. He was 11 when he started training with Brian and was there no more than 5 months. We stopped training with Brian the day my son’s school called me and advised that he was caught cutting his wrists in the toilets because of Brian’s abuse – that’s a day I’ll never forget.
I’d like to think that for the past 6 months I’ve done well to try and hold it together but to-day that changed. I’d had enough! After yet another day of no apology or contact from those spineless ants at Swimming Australia I decided to face the enemy. At approx. 1530 I marched my… Read more »
Sounds like Denis is starting to back-peddle – as MOTHER states – denying ever supporting Brian, stating he didn’t know about the complaints and that he didn’t manage Brian. Sounds like Denis is commencing damage control. Brian has become a thorn in his side now…a lead ballon that needs to be dumped.
In recent months we’ve all seen the news about Belle Gibson and her web of lies – what Brian King has done is actually much worse.
The common and consistent thread amongst not only these comments but those on other forums is the deliberate way he behaved. Brian is a narcissist in the true sense of the word. He bullied children, parents and staff. He lied with such conviction that I truly feel he ended up believing the stories he told.
He stood tall and lied to officials, investigators, police and parents. He lied to his wives and those close to him. But most of all he lied to himself. Because of his arrogance and determination in which he… Read more »